{"id":9704,"date":"2017-08-04T02:42:08","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T02:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9704"},"modified":"2017-08-05T02:43:55","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T02:43:55","slug":"misleading-statements-on-russia-meeting-recall-clintons-impeachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/misleading-statements-on-russia-meeting-recall-clintons-impeachment\/","title":{"rendered":"Misleading statements on Russia meeting recall Clinton’s impeachment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clark D. Cunningham<\/a>, Georgia State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

According to a biographer<\/a> of Donald Trump, \u201cHe\u2019s been lying his whole life, almost reflexively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, President Trump may be lying to his team of private lawyers<\/a> who are handling issues<\/a> relating to the investigation into Russian meddling<\/a> in the election. Last month, Trump\u2019s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow<\/a>, told \u201cMeet the Press<\/a>,\u201d \u201cthe president was not involved\u201d in drafting a misleading statement describing a meeting at Trump Tower between campaign members and a Russian lawyer in June 2016. <\/p>\n

But when the Washington Post reported<\/a> that the president had \u201cpersonally dictated\u201d the statement, the White House confirmed<\/a> that Trump \u201cwas personally involved\u201d in drafting it.<\/p>\n

Failure to be truthful with his private lawyer is what led to former President Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment. At the heart of the Articles of Impeachment brought against Clinton was the charge<\/a> that he gave \u201cperjurous, false and misleading testimony\u201d and allowed his attorney<\/a> to make \u201cfalse and misleading statements\u201d in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones. <\/p>\n

As a scholar of legal ethics<\/a>, I teach my law students that if Clinton had been truthful with his lawyer, it\u2019s likely he never would have been impeached. Like Clinton, Trump badly needs advice from lawyers who are fully informed of the truth. In the opinion of many legal experts<\/a>, the pattern of misleading statements about the Trump Tower meeting has already increased Trump\u2019s exposure to criminal prosecution<\/a> or impeachment. The stakes have just been raised with news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained grand jury subpoenas<\/a> in connection with the Trump Tower meeting.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s impeachment<\/h2>\n

When Clinton was forced to testify in the Jones lawsuit, his personal lawyer, Robert Bennett, attempted to block questioning<\/a> about Monica Lewinsky. Bennett showed the judge an affidavit<\/a> in which Lewinsky stated, \u201cI have never had a sexual relationship with the president.\u201d Clinton\u2019s lawyer described the affidavit as \u201csaying that there is absolutely no sex of any kind<\/a> in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton.\u201d Bennett then asked Clinton<\/a> if \u201cnever had a sexual relationship with the president\u201d was \u201ca true and accurate statement as far as you know it?\u201d <\/p>\n

Clinton answered under oath<\/a>: \u201cThat is absolutely true.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a later court filing, Bennett admitted the Lewinsky affidavit was false<\/a>. But in his autobiography, Bennett insists when he told the judge there was \u201cabsolutely no sex of any kind\u201d between Clinton and Lewinsky, \u201cI believed it with all my heart.\u201d <\/p>\n

If Bennett is to be believed, at the time of Clinton\u2019s testimony he was unaware that Lewinsky had engaged in oral sex with Clinton. We can also infer he did not know, as Clinton explained<\/a> in later grand jury testimony, that his client was interpreting the affidavit\u2019s phrase \u201cnever had a sexual relationship\u201d as not including oral sex.<\/p>\n

If Clinton had told his lawyer the full truth, Bennett could have advised against Clinton\u2019s disastrous word game about the meaning of \u201csexual relationship\u201d \u2013 advice that if taken would probably have prevented Clinton from committing perjury, thus avoiding later impeachment.<\/p>\n

As explained by the American Bar Association, there is an ethical rule<\/a> that would require Trump\u2019s lawyers to treat everything he tells them with complete confidentiality. Trust is<\/a> \u201cthe hallmark of the client-lawyer relationship\u201d so that a client can \u201ccommunicate fully and frankly with the lawyer even as to embarrassing or legally damaging subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheIn my view, Trump should learn from Clinton\u2019s mistakes to never put his lawyers in the position of making statements in his name that later turn out to be false. Clients who don\u2019t tell lawyers the full truth not only lose the benefit of wise advice. Even worse, as Clinton found out, inadequately informed lawyers may inadvertently do their clients great harm.<\/p>\n

Clark D. Cunningham<\/a>, W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics; Director, National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism, Georgia State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clark D. Cunningham, Georgia State University According to a biographer of Donald Trump, \u201cHe\u2019s been lying his whole life, almost reflexively.\u201d Now, President Trump may be lying to his team of private lawyers who are handling issues relating to the investigation into Russian meddling in the election. Last month, Trump\u2019s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[986,479,196,672,2886,2197,2887,1602,714],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9706,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704\/revisions\/9706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}